Talk:Legio VI Ferrata

factual errors: no 6th Legion in Gaul

Let's start with a big one: Caesar had no Legio VI in Gaul. See, for instance, the Battle of the Sabis, in which all his legions fought en masse. No legion with a numerical designation lower than 7 was in Gaul in the 50s. Read the Gallic Wars, or any number of secondary sources. If Dando-Collins is the source for this, he's wrong.

Caesar was consul in 59 BC. He was assigned the proconsulship of three provinces for the following year: the Narbonensis (Mediterranean Gaul); Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy), and Illyricum. Legions were assigned to him by the senate as they were for any promagistrate governing a Roman province. Caesar did go on to levy additional troops and form new legions on his own initiative, but the legions in Gaul were numbered sequentially starting with 7 and going up.

Second biggest one: Pompey wasn't in Spain in 65 BC; he hadn't been in Spain since 71, when he returned from fighting Sertorius to 'aid' Crassus against Spartacus in Italy. The only Roman commander known for Spain in 65 is a Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, who seems to have been Crassus's man. I don't know the history of any legions Pompey formed in Transalpina or Hispania in the 70s, but in the mid-60s, Pompey was in the East, warring with Tigranes and Mithradates. After his triumph in 61, he had held no command. In 59, he was serving on the board of commissioners overseeing land distributions under Caesar's agrarian legislation. Troops came with governing provinces as authorized by the senate. If you had troops for any other reason, you were engaging in civil war.

Third error: The legions Caesar had in the first year of the war did not march from Spain when they assembled in southern Gaul (in the territory of the Vocontii). In BG 1.7, Caesar says plainly "there was only one legion stationed in Gaul" (the famous 10th) at the beginning of the war. He raised troops throughout the Narbonensis (7.1), assembled two new legions in northern Italy (1.10), and bought time until his three legions stationed in Illyricum near Aquileia (1.10) could join him. That Caesar's Narbonese recruits included veterans who had fought under Pompey in the 70s is plausible. But if they were experienced, they're as likely to have been under the command of one of Caesar's predecessors as governor during the 60s, such as Gaius Pomptinus.

Later, there is an internal inconsistency of logic within the article, which states: "During Caesar's African war against Scipio in 46 BC, the Sixth Legion deserted en masse from Scipio to reinforce Caesar and fought under him." This may well be true, and one could hardly blame them if Scipio deserves his bad press; but if the 6th had been Caesar's in 48 and 47, how did it end up under Scipio's command in 46 in the first place? Now, given that during civil wars you might have, say, two different governors of Africa, each claiming authority from one side or the other, it's quite possible that there were two different 6th Legions — but that means they weren't this so-called Ferrata, and need to be distinguished from each other. Could this be related to the issue of the conflicting 6ths of Octavian and Antony? Cynwolfe (talk) 19:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

After several months of waiting, I've deleted statements pertaining to the presence of a Sixth Legion in Gaul. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Isn't El-Lejjun a new foundation for the IV Martia?

El-Lejjun is a Tetrarchan fort. It's not old enough to be associated with the VI Ferrata. 96.231.17.131 (talk) 00:46, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Two places called Lajjun?

See G.Lankester Harding's pre-1967 "The Antiquities of Jordan"(http://archive.org/stream/antiquitiesofjor008347mbp/antiquitiesofjor008347mbp_djvu.txt"), page 33: The third legio (Cyrenaica) was posted in the North and the fourth (Martia) in the South of the country. Two great camps built to accommodate the latter, at Lajjun near Karak and Adhruh near Petra, can still be seen. The Legion IV Martia was raised in the late 3rd century AD for garrisoning Arabia Petraea. But according to this article, the VI Ferrata's one-time camp was Lajjun in pre-1948 Palestine... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.8.98.118 (talk) 12:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)